What would seem to be the most recession proof industry has fallen on hard times. You would think the old maxim of sex sells would get anyone through hard times, but what is forgotten is when men (and let's not kid ourselves men pay for sex) pay for 'entertainment' it comes out of discretionary funds. If you have to pay the bills, fun is going to suffer.

I know people on the steamier side of the street and in other economic hard times they have struggled but stayed afloat. This economic crisis hasn't helped them. One person I know has gone through three jobs and two club closings in the past five months. The get down party atmosphere that was the staple of most clubs has gone down to depressed workers trying to make ends meet. A few days ago I was surprised to get a call I never thought I would get; a call begging me to come in and spend money because the club was very dead and the women had made no money.

I didn't have money myself but I went down to see how bad things were. You haven't seen depression until you've gone into a club with bored women playing video games, talking on the phone and worried about how they're going to pay the bills. It's times like this when people become desperate. I heard stories of women trying to earn extra cash by doing 'extra' stuff. Women at these clubs get phone numbers all the time. In most cases they throw them away but now they're actually calling these guys up, hoping to hit them up for money without having to do something they regret. For the most part, they have to do something they regret.

My friend that works at the club, she's a DJ, has been bouncing from job to job trying to keep steady work. In talking to her she told me she has been living day to day, unsure if she was going to have a job the next day. Two clubs she worked at closed down without any notice to employees, with padlocks on the doors. Promises were made to recover items but it never happened.

Another person I know, when the economy started going bad, actually started back to working at a club as a DJ. He brought his wife along as a hostess, this was in mid 2007 and things seemed to be going OK for them considering they had trouble finding work anywhere else. By the beginning of this year they had to move away to live with his parents because the economy went so bad the packed club turned into a ghost town and the owner laid off most of the staff. That club has now closed down.

In one way, the moralist can say the bad economy hurting this industry is a good thin, but with any interconnected system pain on one part is a pain to the whole. The woman DJ I know had to go to the hospital and doesn't have the money to pay the bill. She needs to get medication, but she can't pay for it so is trying to ride it out. I know at some point she's going to get real sick and will have to be placed in the hospital at the state's expense. The husband and wife I know, now living with his parents, have a strain on their relationship. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if they ended in divorce with a year or two. Their casual drinking has become heavier. As I put earlier, some dancers are doing things they wouldn't have done before, all because they're trying to earn money for rent or to help their kids.

All these folks are hurting to make ends meet and they aren't doing well.